One like Me
by Articfreezer
Summary: Ahri is sent out to find a chameleon in the forest. However, when she finds it she realizes her task isn't as simple as it sounds.
1. Sent out

**This story takes place around the same time as my previous story featuring Quinn, called: Following a lead**

**However, if you have no interest in that, it's fine because you do not need to read it to understand this story's plot. So...yeah...**

**You can leave reviews, so I can know what works and what doesn't, as well as any errors I've made lore-wise or English-wise. Or you don't HAVE too, I don't care...(I care a little bit)  
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**On that note, I don't own League of Legends. People put that disclaimer in their stories right? **

In a quiet forest near Demacia, a mage has been lost for almost a month. The lost man stumbles dangerously over exposed roots and trudges sluggishly through the soft soil. He has been wandering through the quiet woods, hoping for a sign of life to save him. He has found nothing. He closes his eyes and chuckled dryly, knowing that he is at his limit. His once plentiful water supply has run out, and he hasn't eaten for weeks. He reeks of an oder so vile, that he has lost his own sense of smell. His vision is blurred out of weariness and as a result, he trips yet again over a discrete root and falls face-first into mud, dirtying his already filth and dust covered body. This time, the man does not get up. He consents to giving up hope of ever making it out. He wishes death to claim him, before he suffers any longer. He spits out a curse as he lays there, but not in a resentful tone. Instead it is a more regretful tone, as he self pities himself. As his strength fails him, he closes his eyes.

Near him is a solitary male chameleon, camouflaged in fear as the color of the soil. The chameleon watched as the man stumbled and fell. The chameleon watched as the man muttered quietly into the dirt. Both parties stood still for a while after that. The chameleon dares not to move an inch, as it may be a trap. He observes the still man, wondering what this creature is and what was it's intent. Slowly, the chameleon moves from his spot to study the man. Cautiously at first, the chameleon then daringly creeps up to the corpse and touches it's arm. Realizing that the figure was not going to move after that, the silent chameleon simply stares blankly at the dead mage, unsure of what to do now. Suddenly a blue light bursts from the mage's body and floats up over the air above the chameleon's head. The small lizard tilts his head upwards to face the blue light as it starts to form the shape of a orb. Although the chameleon has never seen this object before, he does not fear it. He feels compelled to it. Calmly, as if he didn't wish to disturb the scene, the chameleon moves off the man's arm to backtrack and study the orb further. To his surprise, the orb follows him in a very deliberate motion, moving closer as the lizard moves back. The chameleon stops his movements and watches as the orb continues to float directly toward him. Though normally his instincts should tell him to avoid this mysterious object, he feels no threat emitting from the strange object. He allows the orb to gradually glide in front of his eyes. Then it stops. The chameleon blinks at it, unconcerned, and somehow at ease. He reaches out to touch it...

Ahri was having a very good day. Why was it such a good day?

Recently she had been quite the hotly contested pick, meaning that the popular summoners were starting to warm up to her.

And, she was getting praised on her efforts. Many of her summoners and fellow champion teammates would congratulate her on her job, or at least try to console her if things didn't turn out well. But most importantly, she was being admired. And something about the way the other champions congratulated her made her feel warm inside. It was a little strange really.

A few weeks pass and the glow of that moment is still fresh in her mind. Many of the champions start to notice her high spirits. They tell her that she is more pleasant to hang around with when she is like this. They say they look forward to teaming up with her.

This makes her feel quite pleased. It is hard to understand why, exactly. She thinks hard and comes up with the fact that the more battles she fights in the fields of justice, the more she'll be able to receive life essences. This will turn her more human. 'That must surely be it' she thinks.

Suddenly an announcement booms out disrupting her thoughts.

"League Champion Ahri, please head to the front office."

Ahri hears her name called and initially feels confused. Has she done something wrong? Did the league suspect her of some foul-play? She shook her head. She has not done anything of that sort. Perhaps, she had heard wrong. She sighs. There is no way she heard the announcement wrong. Although humans would normally make mistakes like those, Ahri has kept her primal hearing through her constant metamorphosis. To this day, she had not heard a single word that she had intended to hear wrong. For it to happen now, especially with a loud voice such as the one that comes from the announcer, was impossible. She shrugs. Surely there was a misunderstanding. She could clear it up once she got there. She briskly walks toward the front office, impatient to clear it up.

In no time at all. Standing in front of the door leading into the foreboding office, she hesitates. She takes a moment to reassure herself that she did nothing wrong. Then, with a deep breath, she pushes the door open.

There is a figure of a man there, sitting behind a giant desk, looking at his lap, possibly reading a magazine. At the sound of the door opening he looks up and notices Ahri. He smiles warmly.

"Come in," He tells her.

Ahri hesitates again, then nods to the man and slowly makes her way to the chair opposite to the side of where the man is sitting. She takes a seat and peers at the man behind the desk warily. The man chuckles.

"You are not in trouble, no need to be so tense."

Ahri sighs in relief, as if an invisible weight has just been lifted off her shoulders. She had not realized how apprehensive she had been feeling. The two of them sit in the room for a moment before Ahri begins to wonder why she was called here in the first place, if not to be lectured. She peers questioningly at the man.

"You wish to know why we called you here?" The man asks her. She nods.

"Yes, I understand you are very concerned. May I interest you in a peppermint?" he suddenly asks offering a sweet that he seemingly materialized out of nowhere.

Ahri shakes her head, not wanting to be distracted. One of her tails swishes up in impatience. The man notices this and frowns.

"Very well, I will get to the point."

Ahri nods satisfied and waits for him to finish.

"We at the league...need a favor."

Ahri tenses up as she hears that. She looks at the man disbelievingly. The man simply just returns her gaze, undaunted. Ahri finally speaks up.

"Why me?" She asks. The man sighs, as if he were anticipating the question. He lowers his voice and clenches the peppermint in his hand.

"This is something only you would know about." He explains.

Ahri frowns at that. What would that be? She wasn't anything too special was she? At least, not in terms of all the other champions, right?

"You are…a very special champion..." The man continues bluntly, making Ahri do a double-take. She doesn't know how to respond to his compliment, to hear it come from such a high position in the league is embarrassing. "...and that is why we need you to help him out." Ahri snaps back to reality as she realizes that she missed what the man said. Sheepishly, she asks him to repeat it. The man gives her a perplexed gaze, as he knew as well as anyone the extent of Ahri's hearing. Ahri quickly explains to him that she was not paying any attention, to which he responds by groaning and putting his palm on his face.

"This is important! Don't get distracted!" He scolds her.

Ahri shrinks in her chair a bit and her tails all sink to the floor. The front part of her hair that is still shaped like fox-ears fold back as well. The man takes one look at her and sighs, knowing that he cannot stay mad at anyone that could look like that.

"Just pay attention okay?"

Ahri gives a quick nod and bounces back to life. The man behind the desk sighs wearily, knowing that the only reason she sunk into a pose like that was to garner his sympathy. 'Nonetheless it was effective' he mused. He explains again what he wishes for the nine-tailed fox to do.

Ahri recounts the plan in her head, still unsure if the league would seriously consider following through on it. It is a very dangerous plan. First, Brand, a dangerous fire mage, would be "let out" by a guard accidentally. The guard was in not supposed to actually let him escape. Then, all league matches would be halted and every champion would supposedly be sent to different locations all over the Valoran to search for the "escaped" Brand. They were strategically placed so that one particular area would be clear for just her: a quiet forest along the edge of the Demacian border and the Serpentine river. She was to make her way over to these woods and begin her search. If she were to be discovered, her alibi would be that she was searching for Brand along the Serpentine river when she heard a disturbance in the woods. But the objective of her mission was to locate a particular animal….what was it again? Some sort of lizard?

Right. A chameleon.

The man behind the desk said she'd know what to do once she saw it.

Ahri sighed. This mission seemed almost impossible. How in the world was she supposed to locate one particular chameleon in a dense forest? Even for a fox, that task seemed impossible.

She's considering going to tell the man to cancel when she hears the alarm go off.

"All League matches are postponed. Brand has escaped captivity. Servers will be shut down. This is a code red. Repeat. This is a code red."

Ahri let out a groan. Too late.

"All champions spread out to search for Brand. Report to the Mess hall to receive your assignment."

Ahri grudgingly walked toward the exit of the league, somewhat disappointed that the distraction was successful. She didn't realize the trail of flames on the ground until she felt one. With a yelp, she lept back. The idiots didn't really let out Brand did they?

To her left behind a window she sees two men, one was the guy she spoke to behind the desk. The other was a guard. Curiously, she leans her ear against the window to listen in.

"You idiot!" The first man says to the guard. "You weren't supposed to let him escape!"

"Uh...s-sorry...sir." The guard mumbles fearfully. "H-He was just too strong…"

"Moron! Do you know what you've done?!"

The guard remains silent, simply staring at the floor. A few seconds later a third official came in and joined the conversation

"Sir." He addresses the desk man. "We have dispatched all our champions except one. Quinn has gone missing."

"What?!" The man yells.

"Reports say that a guard let her out because she had requested to take care of other business."

The official peers at the guard. "Hey, that's the guard!"

The poor guard quakes in fear and cowers in a corner as the desk man whips toward him with a look that cannot be described, so terrifying was it.

Ahri laughs softly at the guard expense, and turns to exit. Although she feels that the guard's situation is not the most fitting circumstance to laugh at, she cannot help but feel he got what was coming to him.

She heads toward her destination.

**More bold font. So, how was it? Let me talk about my motivation for this story real quick. There was time way back in the day where I searched Ahri up in the search, and every single result was tagged as romance. And that makes sense, because her lore and the charm. But one day, I was like-"Eh...I don't want to read a romance today" and I couldn't find one for Ahri. So I decided to write one. Nowadays, it's not as big of a deal because times have changed and Ahri has Adventure and other stuff now too. But I decided screw it I'm doing it anyway. Although, I'm not sure what to tag it quite yet. **

**There is also another reason why I chose Ahri of all champs. It's due to me being near a pretty dang good player (Diamond last season) named NEGATIVITY (You might recognize him for his rant of her nerfs _ r/leagueoflegends/comments/1oa32c/negitivity_does_math_on_ahri_changes_results/_) who is practically obsessed with her. He knows everything there is to know about Ahri, and I thought that'd be useful if he ever decides to proofread it. If not, well hopefully someone here will.**

**Maybe they can even help me with summaries and titles, cause well, I have trouble with those. **

**Also it's fun.**

**For those of you who care, updates are sporadic. I might update 2 chapters in a day, I might forget to work on this for months. If for some reason tons of people want me to discontinue this story, I'll take into account. And that's all I have to say about that. Take care.**


	2. Hide and Seek

Ahri trudges through the forest, not tired, but bored. Even for a fox, finding a chameleon in a forest was harder than finding a needle in a haystack. And not just any chameleon, she was told to find a SPECIFIC chameleon. 'You'll know when you see it', they said. She sighs. The task she was assigned was borderline impossible.

Still she scans the forest diligently, as the forest continues on. Being back in the wild is almost nostalgic for her, as she had spent a majority of her life in these parts. She can't really say she misses it, but the quiet noise of the forest is a pleasant change of pace from the hustle and bustle of the league.

Nimbly she jumps over countless exposed tree routes and treads lightly over loose soil, as this is second nature to her. She cannot help but to wonder what would happen were she to go back without the chameleon. Would the league be strict with her? The people in charge of the league seemed like nice people, but they have been known to be wretched when they want to. Another thought came up: Why did they send her out in the first place? They said she would recognize what to do when she saw it, but how did they know that? Was there something different about this chameleon? If so, how did the league gain that knowledge in the first place?

Ahri shakes her head. It was no use pondering these trivial matters. The league had many mysterious technologies that the public knew nothing about. There probably was something that they could use to find out about any occurrence. Wondering about this matter would be like wondering how the league connects summoners and champions in a fight. There would be no clear answer.

Casting these questions aside, Ahri jumps over yet another tree route-

And instantly she coils as a foul smell enters her nostrils.

Ahri takes a second to decide what to do next. She cannot believe she didn't notice the terrible smell earlier; she must have been too distracted with her questions to pay much attention to what her instincts were picking up. Her natural impulse was to avoid going in the direction of that smell, but this was the first thing that seemed out of the ordinary in the peaceful forest. She decides to investigate it.

As she nears the source of the smell, and the stench gets more potent, Ahri gets more and more twitchy. She has a feeling she is not going to appreciate the site of the smell's source. A couple of times she stops and wonders if she should just turn back. But in the end she continues on.

Finally after a few more hops over trees, she sees the body. Or at least what she assumes was a body as thousands of tiny filthy maggots are all over it, consuming its insides. It's a repulsive sight for sure, but the smell is really what most bothering, at least for her.

She can't shake the feeling that she's being watched. She scans the area a couple of times but finds nothing. Yet her senses rarely lie, so she continues to keep a wary eye. Stepping away from the body, she walks around inspecting the area.

She steps on something soft.

With a yelp of surprise, she leaps back as the animal she stepped on makes a similar noise of pain, and flickers into her view before becoming invisible again. Or was it invisible? Ahri moves closer to inspect the strange spot and focuses in on the figure of a boy. It wasn't a old boy, it seemed around the age of Annie and Nunu but what really caught her interest was this boy was the exact color of the ground he lay on, the skin was shaded the same way as the forest floor. Ahri frowns and pokes the boy, but instantly recoils when the texture of the boy's skin feels differently from what she was expecting. Instead of feeling like normal flesh, the camouflaged boy's skin felt scaly and unnatural, almost like-

Like a lizard.

The pieces click together in Ahri's head. This was what she was looking for.

Cautiously she reaches out and picks the boy up, as he is not too heavy. The boy slowly turns from the color of the ground to the color of her skin. She takes note of his expression, seeming terrified.

"Can you talk?" She asks the boy.

The boy's twitches as if he heard, but makes no movement, as if he's hoping that she doesn't realize he is in her arms. Ahri sighs and puts the boy back on his feet, causing him to come out of his camouflage and simply stand there staring.

"What is your name?" She asks the boy gently.

The boy gapes at her, uncomprehendingly.

"Do you understand what I mean?" Ahri prompts him.

The boy appears to think for a while and then nods. Ahri decides to test her suspicions.

"Was the man over there," she prompts the dead body. "A magician?"

The boy nods.

"Did an orb appear to you?"

The boy nods.

"Are you," Ahri leans forward. "A chameleon?"

The boy pauses for a second, thinking. Then he nods.

Ahri now sees what happened to this boy. Somehow, in some way the same thing that happened to _her_, has happened to the boy. A chameleon that was now a human. Ahri contemplates what had happened to her after she was turned into a human. Much like this boy, she remembers being confused and panicked as human knowledge seeped into her unprecedentedly. For a while, she didn't know what to do. But, she realized her opportunity. She had always felt there was more to her life then being a regular fox and attempted to become more human, as she realized the orb was her key to doing so. The more time she spent using the orb the more human values made sense and the closer she became to a human.

"Do you want to be human too?" She asks the chameleon.

The boy pauses at her, registering her question and searching his mind for its meaning. Then he shakes his head. No.

Ahri hesitates here. If he didn't want to be human then what? He sure couldn't go back to be a chameleon. At least she didn't think so. Ahri looks thoughtfully at the boy.

"You have to." She informs him.

The boy simply looks at her.

As she struggles to come up with something else to say, a random flash of light startles her and forces her to look up. She notices what appears to be Valor, a Demacian eagle belonging to Quinn. But for some reason, the eagle was on _fire. _

Valor flies straight up in the air, apparently trying to use the wind to put out the flames. Ahri simply stares, stunned at the sight of which she is witnessing. As the bird reaches higher and higher into the clouds, the flames do get put out. For a split-second, the charred bird stays in place and Ahri swears that it was looking at _her. _Then it drops down in an ungraceful decent and plummets back toward earth.

Ahri stand there with the boy, thinking of what she had just witnessed. Was the bird calling for help? It seemed like that was the case. She addresses the boy.

"Will you come with me?"

The boy appears to think about that question for the longest time. He stares at his hands and shudders. Then he focuses on his questioner. He carefully notes her human-like appearance, but also her tails, floating behind her. He finally speaks; his voice softer then she expected, answering her question with a question of his own.

"Are you a fox?"

Ahri is caught by surprise that he speaks but recovers. She answers his question.

"I was a fox."

The boy thinks for a bit more and then nods. "I'll go."

Ahri thanks the boy and picks him up. Then she spirit rushes over to where she had seen Valor fall. She had spent a fair amount of time conversing with the boy after she had heard the call and fears that she may be too late. Time is of the essence.

She is not sure how far away the bird is, but just as she is panicking that she may not find it, she once again catches Valor in the air, only a slight distance away from her and this time for sure staring directly at her. It lets out a shrill cry and slowly begins its decent. Ahri dashes towards its location, jumping over many fallen logs and weaving through the forest, the chameleon boy whisked behind her without any expression whatsoever on his face. Up ahead she catches a whiff of something that smells like burning. She must be nearing the source. She starts to hear voices. "…That annoying bird! I will end you both!" She ducks under another branch and spirit rushes through a thick tree. There she sees Valor, and her master Quinn, both clearly in peril. A very angry man of fire was standing in front of them with a fireball ready to burn them into bits.

Ahri smacks her head. Brand was loose.

**Wow this took forever. I don't know, I had what I wanted to happen in my mind, but for the longest time I couldn't think of how to write it up to that point. Sorry. **

**This story is extremely difficult for me to write for some reason. My last story, I was able to whip out a chapter in like a day without even thinking, but this chapter took me forever and I'm STILL not all that pleased about how it came out. **

**Because of this, I'm not sure if I can even finish. I might take a break and work on a different story if I can't figure out how to continue with this one. I'll try to at least work it out so I can sometimes get a chapter out here, who knows, maybe I'll suddenly get a random inspiration spree and blast out the chapters. But my confidence level is low as of now. **

**Leave any suggestions and reviews that you feel like doing. I could use them.**


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